Officer during the Battle of Lockdown – Your house, 2020

Commission for Army Logistics Training Centre (ALTC)

It would be impossible to count the ways we are changed by the experience of lock down and the pandemic as a whole. Some of these changes are good, some bad, some small and some profound. What is certain is that the memory of this time will colour our future lives for years to come.

This image of an ALTC officer, a mother, trying to keep it all together during lock down is a contemporary re-imagining of the ‘generals’ portraits’ of old. How very different the profession of arms now looks. What was for her a demanding job has become nearly impossible as she now manages the myriad of challenges of delivering training during lock down across the varying restrictions on the NSW/VIC border. All this while also learning and juggling home school for her children as well as keeping a tenuous grip on her own mental welfare. She’s still smiling, just, because there is no other option. This struggle, or one very similar, was shared by so many. May she be a tribute to what was achieved, saved, re-imagined and learned at ALTC during that time.